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| Home - Industry Article - Sep 02 Issue |
The Zero-Latency Enterprise
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Analytical Applications >> Real time analytics is key to a closed loop business process, as a ZLE cannot function with historical date from just one portion of the business. Executives need enterprisewide visibility using data from real-time transactional applications, in order to make timely and appropriate decisions. Alphablox’s InLine Analytics™ software enables Global 2000 companies to improve the predictability of their businesses and optimize profitability by integrating analytics with core processes and transactional applications across their enterprise. Earlier this year, the company partnered with IBM to integrate the Alphablox software into IBM’s WebSphere suite.
The Challenges
While the industry is seeing unprecedented cooperation from the major players to develop and promote industry standards for Web Services, it remains to be seen how quickly these standards go into effect, and if the players adhere to them or develop variations that promote their proprietary solutions. Enterprises may adopt a wait-and-see attitude till the dust settles down, which would delay the move to real time computing, especially when combined with the slowdown in technology spending. While more vendors are emerging and prices are dropping, full-blown implementations can still costs tens of millions.
For multiple enterprises to collaborate and share/execute business processes, there is a need for a centralized directory that maintains the policies across the board. Every organization owns/maintains their own and is not willing to share it or store it out in the “clouds”. Mapping across enterprises in real-time is another challenge that needs to be addressed before inter-enterprise processes can function in real-time.
One of the biggest challenges here is the integration of disparate systems to build out “closed loop processes using loosely coupled applications”. Componentization of legacy applications entails significant redesign effort and can be an expensive proposition. Furthermore, the maintenance of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) guaranteeing all the system capabilities is a challenge when you connect these apps over the Internet.
Real time analytical applications pose some challenges too. In typical analytical applications, data is uploaded in batch mode at periodic intervals, typically every night. To provide real-time analytics, applications need current data. Some vendors, such as Acta Technologies, now provide tools that perform ETL (extract transform load) of data as it occurs. Even in this scenario, there will be some latency as the fact tables in a warehouse get loaded after some computation.
But the biggest challenge of all is people and prevailing business practices. The need for strong Change Management cannot be overemphasized. It is critical to the successful deployment of these systems, as well as to realizing the desired benefits. Management must make adequate investments in training, redesign of processes & incentives.
What Lies Ahead
Given the benefits of real time computing and competitive pressures, enterprises will make the investments necessary to morph into Zero Latency Enterprises. That said, the progress to ZLE will be evolutionary rather then revolutionary. Enterprise IT shops are a “melting pot” of technologies from multiple vendors and this trend will continue in spite of Oracle’s push for enterprises to adopt solutions from one vendor and hence have the integration problem solved “out of the box”. Companies will leverage a combination of the technologies described above to achieve ZLE.
Enterprises will weigh the costs and benefits of moving business processes to real time, focusing first on those business processes where operating with real time data results in lower operational costs, better delivery/response times, improved competitiveness, etc.
Technical solutions are only one piece of the puzzle – probably the easier one to solve. The move to ZLE requires a cultural change and a new way of building, delivering and supporting products and services. Product life cycles have diminished dramatically as customers have demanded greater personalization and better service in the shortest possible time at the lowest possible cost. Embracing this culture has contributed to Dell’s success. Their “just in time” manufacturing processes have given them the capability to build personalized PCs for customers without the overhead of large inventories. The consulting firms’ Change Management practices will enjoy renewed growth and high demand as their clients try to get their people adapt to doing business in real time.
As we mentioned earlier, zero-latency enterprises will have a competitive advantage through operational efficiencies and cost reduction as well as higher customer satisfaction. And those startups and established companies providing solutions to enable the ZLE can expect to garner more attention and customers as the benefits of real-time computing begin to affect organizations’ bottom lines. As organizations face the challenges of creating zero-latency enterprises, we think they will find it’s not such a Holy Grail, but more of a brass ring.
Copyright 2002 Garage Technology Ventures. All rights reserved. Garage Technology Ventures and Garage.com are trademarks of Garage Technology Ventures. All other company names are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.
All securities and securities-related services are offered by Garage Technology Ventures" wholly-owned subsidiary Garage Securities, Inc., member NASD/SIPC.
 
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